Politics of Location:Locating Home in M.G. Vassanji’s The Gunny Sack

The quest for home highlights the dilemmas of an expatriate community or individual and arises questions, which introduce fissures in a neatly devised discourse of ischolar_mainedness and belongingness. In his fiction, he explores the fissures and interstices in the overseas community of Gujarati traders who migrated to Africa in the late 19th century, during the height of colonialism. The axis of Vassanji’s fiction is the rigorous questioning of his own community’s history. Tied with this recollection of his community’s past is his reconstruction of the East African as well as the North American history. Africa and America provide the backdrop to the Indian lives that he re-members and reconstructs. However, the relationship of the writers of Indian origin with Africa has not been very pleasant. Naipaul has come under fire from African scholars for his negative portrayal of Africans in his writings. It has been argued that the Indian perception of Africa is not different from that of the white writers. Naipual’s response to the Caribbean reality and presence of African majority can be argued to be more complex and self-searching, here one can not overlook the scorn peering through Naipaul’s writings. Vassanji’s attitude towards Africa is more sympathetic. His tone is more yielding. Though he has migrated to Canada via the United States, his emotional ties with Africa are kept intact. For Vassanji, the Chronicler of his community’s history, sojourn in Africa and later in North America becomes defining forces responsible for shaping up the present of the small migrant Indian community to which he belongs. The reconstruction of his community’s history is not the only concern of Vassanji. As a writer he wishes to understand his present and sees it as his duty to locate displaced and the other marginal communities in shifting power relations. It is important for Vassanji to “begin at the beginning” to talk about the past.